"Judith Merril - The Best of Judith Merril" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

discovered the first of the throwaway diapers, andтАФin memory at leastтАФthere was remarkably little
drudgery involved in the experiment in communal living, "Parallax."
Judith Merril was a revelation to me. I had never before known a politically conscious femaleтАФan
area where I not only did not shine, I did not exist. I had never known a woman who could outthink me
as often as she could outtalk meтАФnot always, but often enough so that I could as easily have disliked her
as admired her.
None of the easy labels fitted her. I think (now) that I hardly ever thought of her as a woman. Asked
then what she looked like, I would answer, "A gaunt revolutionary; extraordinary large, intense eyes and
hollow cheeks with unusually high cheekbones; wavy dark hair; and an overwhelming presence." I could
visualize her on the barricades more readily than I could see her in our kitchens or on baby patrol, and
above all, I thought of her as central in a group of half a dozen voluble writers or seated at her typewriter
like Athena-in slacks pouring out incredibly good first drafts. No question but that she was a sexual
person, and a very attractive one (if pressed, I would add that she had an excellent figure and good legs
and was a little taller than I was, which adds up to 5' 6" or maybe 7") but in assessing her I was hung up
on her politicalness and intellectual elegance; I did not see her as a woman. I think (now) that this may
have been because she never thought of herself as what is now denigrated as a "sex object," but only as a
free and integrated person. She was not exhibiting competitive sexuality, the only kind I was used to;
therefore I could not see the quality at all, and was continually astonished at the number and variety of
men who desired her company, whereas I was moved to equal parts of hero worship and the merest
beginnings of friendship. That friendship has lasted thirty years and grown to the point where, only a
decade or so ago, I began to, realize that I hadтАФearly on тАФencountered a liberated woman in my
Mecca. This is the best of Judith Merril for me: she knew a lot of the answers before most people
realized there might be, ought to be, questions.
"Parallax" only lasted about a year. (By then we were both seeking divorces and were shortly after
remarried. Not too long after that, Judy gave birth to her second daughter, which closes that roster.)
In the meantime, and almost all the time, Judy was pursuing her ambition. Ted Sturgeon has written
elsewhere a tribute to the young woman who was so determined to become what she already clearly
was: a Writer.
She wrote golf stories and detective stories; she wrote secret poetry and public polemics; she
worked at writing science fiction. Her first story in the genre sold to Astounding and made her name
overnight: "That Only a Mother."
It is interesting to note that, although she has always been enormously well read and widely informed,
able to discuss technicalities all night, she very seldom writesтАФor even touches onтАФnuts and bolts. It is
assumed that, if there is a busbar to be welded, it will have been welded, so that the story can move on.
She is much more likely to be thinking about the problems of being a particular kind of person, and the
problems of communication. If there are babies in some of her stories, those babies wear diapersтАФand
the question of how those diapers get changed under trying circumstances is not skimmed over. Back
when women were being regarded as mere props to be rescued from bug-eyed monsters, Merril was
addressing the question of what it might really be like to be a woman in the future, a woman in space; a
couple of her stories were so (then) daring that she took refuge under the pseudonym of Rose Sharon.
Again and again she returns to the questions raised by ESP, hoping for true mind-to-mind encounters.
There have been very few new pieces from Merril recently, and what has appeared in the U.S.A. has
been experimental or explorations into the art of the translator or the old art of the book review. Her
appearances within the microcosm have become rare enough so that every once in a while someone asks
meтАФknowing that I am her agent or perhaps knowing only that I am her friendтАФ"Whatever became of
Judith Merril?" And I would like to direct them to an interview conducted by Robert Fulford (editor of
the Canadian magazine Saturday Night and host of a talk show on CBC, an interview from which I have
Fulford's gracious permission to quote.)
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